Overview

Metrix++ is the platform to collect and analyse code metrics.

• It has got plugin based architecture, so it is easy to add support for new languages and/or define new metrics and/or create new pre- and post-processing tools.
• Every metric has got 'turn-on' and other configuration options.
• There is no predefined thresholds for metrics or rules. You can choose and configure any limit you want.
• It scales well to big code bases. For example initial parsing of about 10000 files takes 2-3 minutes on average PC, and ONLY 10-20 seconds for iterative re-run. Reporting summary results and exceeded limits is less than 1 - 10 seconds.
• It can compare results for 2 code snapshots (collections) and differentiate added regions (classes, functions, etc.), modified regions and unchanged regions.
• As a result, easy deployment is guaranteed into legacy software, helping you to deal with legacy code effiently - either enforce 'leave it not worse than it was before' rule or motivate re-factoring.

Standard Plugins

The distributive includes a set of standard plugins:

• Code parsers

  • C/C++ parser recognises definition of namespaces, definition of classes/structs (including enclosed in functions), templates and definition of functions/operators
  • C# parser recognises definition of namespaces, definition of classes/structs (including enclosed in functions), interfaces, generics, definition of functions/operators
  • Java parser recognises definition of classes (including local in functions), interfaces, generics and functions

• Metrics

  • cyclomatic complexity (by McCabe) per function [supports C/C++, C#, Java languages]
  • processing errors per file [supports any file type]
  • processing time per file [supports any file type]

• Analysis tools

  • export.py - exporter to xml, python or plain text of detailed information per file and/or aggregated information per file or directory [aggregated data includes sum, maximum, minimum, average within a subset of selected files or directories]
  • limit.py - a tool to report regions exceeding speified thresholds, which are configurable (output is plain text with metadata compatible with gcc compiler warning messages)
  • info.py - a tool to show file metadata, such as properties, namespaces and fields recorded

Download & Installation

For the installation of the Metrix++ download the archive with the latest stable version and unpack it to some folder. Corresponding checkout from the version control system:

> svn checkout https://metrixplusplus.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/metrixplusplus/releases/<version>

Alternatively, there is an option to download tarball file with the latest development version of the tool or checkout this version of source code from the version conrol system:

> svn checkout https://metrixplusplus.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/metrixplusplus/mainline/

Prerequisites:

Python Runtime Environment (version 2.7.0 or later, version 3.0 has not been tested)

License:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 3 of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the Metriix++; if not, contact Project Administrator and write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

Documentation

Tools are self-descriptive and have got comprehensive context help. Type in the command line: python <tool-name>.py --help

Known Limitations

Check 'doc/limitations.txt' file distributed with the tool or browse for recent version online.

Basic Workflow

Assuming that you opened a terminal and your current working directory is in the root folder of the tool installed.

I. Start with running a collector tool, enabling a collection of cyclomatic complexity:

> python collect.py --std.code.complexity.on -- /path/to/your/project ../../path/to/some/other/project

It will generate a database file in working directory with default name. In order to change the name or location, use corresponding command line option. Depending on a size of code base, collection may take seconds or minutes, but it is very fast in general. In order to achive the highest performance (~ to calculation of crc32) for iterative re-scans, point out to the dabase file collected for the previous code revision:

> python collect.py --std.code.complexity.on --general.db-file-prev=metrixpp-prev.db --
 /path/to/your/project

Paths are optional. If you do not specify a path, it will scan files in the current working directory. Check other available options for the tool by executing:

> python collect.py --help

II. Secondly, export data using export tool.

> python export.py --
<export>
    <data>
        <info path="" id="1" />
        <file-data />
        <subfiles>
        </subfiles>
        <subdirs>
            <subdir>path</subdir>
        </subdirs>
        <aggregated-data>
            <std.code.complexity>
                <cyclomatic max="2" total="14.0" avg="0.168674698795" min="0" />
            </std.code.complexity>
        </aggregated-data>
    </data>
</export>
                

By default, it exports all aggregated data for all files scanned in xml format. It is possible to re-configure output format to python or plain text. In order to narrow the scope, specify a path to directory or a file. In order to export only subset of metrics, specify them as well.

> python export.py --general.format=python --general.namespaces=std.code.complexity --
 /path/to/your/project/subdir
<export>
    ...
</export>

If you have got results collected for previous version, point out to the file using the corresponding option and the tool will add diff data.

> python export.py --general.namespaces=std.code.complexity --general.db-file-prev=metrixpp-prev.db --
<export>
    <data>
        <info path="" id="1" />
        <file-data />
        <subfiles>
        </subfiles>
        <subdirs>
            <subdir>path</subdir>
        </subdirs>
        <aggregated-data>
            <std.code.complexity>
                <cyclomatic max="2" total="14.0" avg="0.168674698795" min="0">
                    <__diff__ max="0" total="0.0" avg="0.0" min="0" />
                </cyclomatic>
            </std.code.complexity>
        </aggregated-data>
    </data>
</export>
                

Check other available options for the tool by executing:

> python export.py --help

III. Finally, identify code regions which exceed a specified limit, applying it to all scanned files:

> python limit.py --general.max-limit=std.code.complexity:cyclomatic:7 --
/path/to/your/project/ui/notifications.cpp:72: warning: Metric 'std.code.complexity/cyclomatic' for
 region 'doFont' exceeds the limit.
        Metric name    : std.code.complexity/cyclomatic
        Region name    : doFont
        Metric value   : 10
        Modified       : None
        Change trend   : None
        Limit          : 7
/path/to/your/project/ui/notifications.cpp:144: warning: Metric 'std.code.complexity/cyclomatic' for
 region 'doStyle' exceeds the limit.
        Metric name    : std.code.complexity/cyclomatic
        Region name    : doStyle
        Metric value   : 9
        Modified       : None
        Change trend   : None
        Limit          : 7

You can limit the scope of analysis by defining paths to directories or files.If you have got results collected for previous version, point out to the file using the corresponding option and the tool will notify about change status:

> python limit.py --general.max-limit=std.code.complexity:cyclomatic:7
 --general.db-file-prev=metrixpp-prev.db --
/path/to/your/project/ui/notifications.cpp:72: warning: Metric 'std.code.complexity/cyclomatic' for
 region 'doFont' exceeds the limit.
        Metric name    : std.code.complexity/cyclomatic
        Region name    : doFont
        Metric value   : 10
        Modified       : True
        Change trend   : 0
        Limit          : 7
/path/to/your/project/ui/notifications.cpp:144: warning: Metric 'std.code.complexity/cyclomatic' for
 region 'doStyle' exceeds the limit.
        Metric name    : std.code.complexity/cyclomatic
        Region name    : doStyle
        Metric value   : 9
        Modified       : True
        Change trend   : +1
        Limit          : 7

Another useful option for this tool helps you to deal with legacy code. It is not unusual if you have got enormous number of warnings enabling new thresholds for the code designed in the past, which has not be profiled/targeted to specific metric limits. By default the tool warns about all code regions, ignoring their change status. You can reconfigure it to one of the following:

• warn only about new code regions (functions, classes):

> python limit.py --general.max-limit=std.code.complexity:cyclomatic:7
 --general.db-file-prev=metrixpp-prev.db --general.warn=new --

• warn about new code regions and modifed regions regressing the metric (enforces the rule 'leave not worse than it was before'):

> python limit.py --general.max-limit=std.code.complexity:cyclomatic:7
 --general.db-file-prev=metrixpp-prev.db --general.warn=trend --
/path/to/your/project/ui/notifications.cpp:144: warning: Metric 'std.code.complexity/cyclomatic' for
 region 'doStyle' exceeds the limit.
        Metric name    : std.code.complexity/cyclomatic
        Region name    : doStyle
        Metric value   : 9
        Modified       : True
        Change trend   : +1
        Limit          : 7

• warn about new and all modified regions (motivates for refactoring of legacy code):

> python limit.py --general.max-limit=std.code.complexity:cyclomatic:7
 --general.db-file-prev=metrixpp-prev.db --general.warn=touched --
/path/to/your/project/ui/notifications.cpp:72: warning: Metric 'std.code.complexity/cyclomatic' for
 region 'doFont' exceeds the limit.
        Metric name    : std.code.complexity/cyclomatic
        Region name    : doFont
        Metric value   : 10
        Modified       : True
        Change trend   : 0
        Limit          : 7
/path/to/your/project/ui/notifications.cpp:144: warning: Metric 'std.code.complexity/cyclomatic' for
 region 'doStyle' exceeds the limit.
        Metric name    : std.code.complexity/cyclomatic
        Region name    : doStyle
        Metric value   : 9
        Modified       : True
        Change trend   : +1
        Limit          : 7

Check other available options for the tool by executing:

> python limit.py --help

Bug Report & Feature Request

Any types of enquiries are welcomed by e-mail to project administrator.

Create Plugin

Please, consider to join the project and contribute to the development of the engine or include you plugins into the standard set of plugins distributed together with this tool. Contact project administrator by e-mail.

New Metric

Unfortunately, there is no rich documentation at this stage. Briefly, any new plugin starts with creating 2 new files: 'ini' and 'py'. You can copy from other avaialble (for example, ini and py files for the standard complexity plugin) and impelement the logic related to the new metric.

New Analysis Tool

Unfortunately, there is no rich documentation at this stage. Briefly, database API (class Loader implemented in 'core.db.loader') is a starting point for any new post-analysis tool. There are 2 standard tools (export.py and limit.py) available which use this API.

New Language Support

Unfortunately, there is no rich documentation at this stage. Briefly:

• a plugin is registered in the same way as a plugin for new metric
• it subscribes to directory reader plugin
• parses a file in a callback, called by directory reader
• parser needs to identify markers (like comments, strings, preprocessor) and regions (like functions, classes, etc.) and tell about this to file data object passed as an argument for the callback.

Parser for C/C++ language can serve as an example. There useful options and tools are avaialble for trobuleshooting purposes during development:

• debug.py tool is helpful troubleshooting tool. In mode 'dumphtml' it generates html code showing code highlightings
• --general.nest-regions for export tool forces exporting of code structure in tree format. It can be helpful for analysis of parser's internals
• --general.log-level=GENERAL.LOG_LEVEL for any tool is helpful to trace execution

Finally, if there are any questions or enquires, please, feel free to contact project administrator by e-mail.

Source Code Repository

Source code is in the Subversion repository (browse online) used by the project. Corresponding checkout command is the following:

> svn checkout https://metrixplusplus.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/metrixplusplus/mainline/